
Beautiful 

By 

A PLEA FOR \1% PRESERVATIONANf DEDICATION 
AS A PUBLIC PARK FOR ALL THE PEOPLE. 



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LAKE HOPATCONG 
THE BE AUTI FUL 



A PLEA 

for its Dedication as a Public Park 

and for its Preservation as a Pleasure 

and Health Resort for the Benefit of 

all the People 



BY 

HUDSON MAXIM 



MAXIM PARK 

BOROUGH OF HOPATCONG 

LANDING P. O. 

N EW JERSEY 






The McConnell Printing Co. 

230-242 william street, new york 



' GIFT 
HtK. WOODROW WlLSOHi 
NOV. 25, 1939 



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PREFACE 



This book is a plea for the life of New Jersey's most beautiful 
lake, and a plea for the life of the communities around that lake, 
and a plea also for the life of thousands of people in all parts of the 
State who, if that lake is preserved as a summer and health resort, 
will continue to find renewal of health and life in visiting it. 
Vt This plea is addressed to the Morris Canal Investigation Com- 

mittee, to the Legislature, and to the people of the State of New 
Jersey. 

Lake Hopatcong is threatened with ruination; the prosperous 
communities around it are threatened with extinction, and our most 
precious mountain-lake resort is in imminent danger of being 
wiped off the map. 

Armed with fore-knowledge of the intentions of the enemy, and 
having the facts, the truth and justice as my allies, I hope and I 
trust that I shall be able to convince any citizen of this State that 
he should join issue with the defenders where also his own interests 
lie, and help to prevent a great wrong being done to the whole popu- 
lation of the State as well as to the immediate lake communities. 

People of the State of New Jersey, let it be known to you that 
there is a movement to take away from you, without any sort of 
compensation whatsoever, a very valuable lake and summer resort 
property which belongs to you. 

Citizen of the State of New Jersey, you are a member of a com- 
pany, an actual shareholder in a corporation, which is the State, 
in which also every man, woman and child in the State are share- 
holders. A part of your annual dividends, due and payable to you, 
are your rights and privileges in your lakes, public parka and sum- 
mer and health resorts. 

There is a scheme afoot to rob you of your best and most valu- 
able mountain-lake and summer resort property, in order to appro- 
priate Lake Hopatcong as a city water supply, which would benefit 
only about five per cent, of the population of the State, at the 
expense of the rest — in other words it is proposed to rob twenty 
Peters to pay one Paul, and you and I, reader, are among the Peters. 

Now, it is your duty to yourself and to your family, and to every 
friend and neighbor of yours, that you should lend a helping voice 
of protest to prevent you and them from being robbed. The 
reasons why you also should raise your voice in defence of your 
own and the people's own, are exactly the same reasons which are 
actuating me to make this plea. 

It matters not whether or not my interests may be greater or 
less than yours — our interests are certainly identical and mutual. 

My sense of duty has led me to make this plea. Your sense of 
duty should, at least, make you read it. 

No special activities or efforts are asked of you. If you will 
read this plea through, your activities and your efforts will take 
care of themselves. HUDSON MAXIM. 

Landing, New Jersey, Feb. 3, 1913. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Preface 3 

Ownership by Seizure Versus Ownership by Purchase . . 5 

The Morris Canal Should Be Abandoned 9 

Utter Insignificance of the Morris Canal as a Coal Carrier. . 12 

Extravagant Waste of Water 15 

Summary of Eeasons Why the Morris Canal Should Be 

Abandoned 20 

What Should Be Done with the Right of Way of the Morris 

Canal 22 

A Plea for the Preservation of Lake Hopatcong. Speech of 
Hudson Maxim before the Senate Committee on Rail- 
roads and Canals, at Trenton, New Jersey, February 5, 
1912 24 

Speech of Hudson Maxim before the Morris Canal Investiga- 
tion Committee at the Lake Hopatcong Hearing, 
November 16, 1912 30 

The State's Great Vacation Park 36 

Property Map of Lake Hopatcong, . Showing Its Wonderful 
Adaptability for a Summer and Health Resort, and Its 
Equally Wonderful Lack of Adaptability for a Potable 
Water Supply 38 

Some Important Facts About Lake Hopatcong 40 



Ownership by Seizure Versus Ownership by Purchase 



Our legal statutes are coercive rules of behavior based upon 
our past customs and practices. The customs and practices of an 
enlightened, mechanical and scientific age are vastly different from 
those of a primitive, unmechanical and unscientific age. Conse- 
quently, many laws which may have been wise and applicable in a 
simpler state of society can not, with wisdom, be enforced in a 
higher and more complex state of society. 

Kobert G. Ingersoll once said, with a good measure of truth, that 
the world has not been fit for a gentleman to live in for much more 
than fifty years. 

At any rate, it is probable that the world has advanced more 
during the last hundred and fifty years in all things which make 
for complete living than it had previously advanced in all the long 
eons since the world thawed out of the ancient ice. 

Consequently, during the nearly hundred years of the existence 
of the Morris Canal, great changes have taken place in all the 
mechanism of human society, and the laws which were made to 
govern conditions three generations ago are in many respects in- 
applicable to the present generation. 

Most of the laws which have been enacted in every age and 
every generation of men have been to amend or repeal pre-existing 
laws, which the wisdom of wider experience proved unjust or imprac- 
ticable, or which were rendered inapplicable under the changed con- 
ditions of society. 

The need of a law must, therefore, of necessity precede the enact- 
ment of the law. The supply of wise laws can never quite meet the 
demand for those laws. 

Statutorj^ laws are an aggregation of fixed rules of conduct, 
which of necessity can never quite meet the multifarious require- 
ments of infinite variation under continually changing conditions. 

The accumulation of laws and precedents now upon our statute 
books is so massive that the study necessary to the highest Chinese 
scholarship could scarcely master it. 

No wonder then that laws are often enacted which are uncon- 
stitutional or which contradict already existing laws. 

The many interests, necessities and relations of individuals, 
communities and corporations connected with the abandonment of 
the Morris Canal apparently require the enactuient of special laws 
for their adjustment, and the plan for bringing about this desirable 
result ought to be reached by the exercise of concerted common sense, 
with evident necessary regard for the eternal fitness of things. It 
is simply a business men's proposition. 



The chief problem for the lawyers to settle in connection with 
the abandonment of the Morris Canal appears to be the relation of 
the validity of ownership by purchase to the validity of ownership 
by seizure. 

When the Morris Canal and Banking Company built its dam 
or water wall at the outlet of Lake Hopatcong, raising the high 
water level of the Lake eleven feet above its former level, thereby 
enormously increasing the storage capacity of the Lake, that Com- 
pany acquired by actual purchase, either of the land itself or of 
the right of tiowage, only a very small part of the total area over 
which the water was raised. By far the larger part of the lands 
affected by raising the Lake were never purchased by. the Canal 
Company, and no right whatever to flow them was ever purchased 
by that Company. A large part of the bed of the old lake and shore 
lands affected belonged at that time to the East Jersey Board of 
Proprietors. 

About one-half of the bed of the old Lake and of the newly 
flowed lands were purchased by Nathaniel Niles, from the East 
Jersey Board of Proprietors, in 1882, and they are still the property 
of private owners. 

These lands have a total area of about one thousand, one hun- 
dred and sixty-five acres, and comprise about half of the total area 
covered by the waters of the Lake; and yet the Canal Company, 
neither by purchase nor by condemnation, acquired any right what- 
soever to flow these lands. 

A large amount of land owned by other persons was flowed, 
with similar lack of recognition of the rights of the owners, no pay- 
ment or compensation of any kind ever having passed from the 
Canal Company into the hands of the owners. 

We are told that when a public service institution, like a rail- 
road or a canal, has acquired private property by user instead of by 
purchase, the corporation can not be dispossessed by the actual 
owner of the property. We have the consolation of being advised, 
however, that if and when the occupancy and operations of the 
public service institution cease, then all rights acquired by it re- 
vert to the original owner. But even this consolation is lately be- 
coming tainted by certain adverse legal opinions to the effect that 
property which has been put to one public use, may be diverted 
to another public use without the consent of the actual owner and 
without compensation to the owner, provided that the new use is no 
more onerous or disadvantageous to him than the old use, but this 
legal opinion lies so close to the margin of constitutionality that 
the possessors of it are apt to hold it with a tenure somewhat pro- 
portionate to the involvement of their personal interests. 

Of course such procedure is not justice to the individual prop- 
erty owner. No one pretends or can pretend that it is justice — only 
that it is the law. 

The mistake is often made of confounding law with justice. 
Law is merely an attempt to attain justice, when it is not enacted 
by some powerful interest for the purpose of thwarting justice. 



Justice is the target at which legislators are supposed to aim. But 
as legislators are often rather poor legal marksmen, it is rare indeed 
that a bull's eye is made when justice is aimed at. 

It may be said of law, that it is a codification of custom, mainly 
aiming at justice; but, as is always true of bad marksmanship, there 
are often many casualties among innocent bystanders. 

A small boy, seeing a big piece of apple pie cut presumably for 
his grandmother, exclaimed with indignation, "Oh, what a great 
piece of pie for Grandma !" But when his mama said, "No, sonny, 
this piece of pie is for you," he exclaimed with equal perturbation, 
"Oh, what a little bit !" His conviction was strongly biased by the 
point of view. "It makes a difference whose ox is gored." 

The agnostic scientists claim, in substance, that there is so 
much relativity cumbered up with the presumption of absolute 
knowledge that we cannot be perfectly sure of really knowing any- 
thing, not even that we are sure that we can be sure of knowing 
nothing — that nothing that we know is absolute knowledge, and 
that knowledge is nothing that we know that we know. 

However, most of us believe that there are a few things of 
which we can be reasonably sure, and one of them is, that things 
which are equal to the same thing are necessarily equal to each 
other, and a fact which will square with another fact will also 
square with a third fact which squares with that other fact. In 
brief, "What is sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander." 

Now the communities upon the shores of Lake Hopatcong are 
also important servants of the public. They, too, are public service 
institutions and they are rendering a far greater service by afford- 
ing the people a highly attractive and healthful resort than could, 
by any possibility, ever be rendered by a rehabilitated and enlarged 
Morris Canal as a coal-carrier. 

By consequence, then, the same reason for safeguarding the 
welfare of the public b}- safeguai'ding the interests of public service 
institutions also apply to the communities about Lake Hopatcong. 

They have the same rights to protection of their interests 
under the law that any public service institution has, and those 
rights can not be circumscribed, limited or encroached upon in any 
way whatsoever without rank injustice, any more than could the 
rights of any public service institution, except when evidently larger 
public policy demands the exercise of the arbitrariness of eminent 
domain, with condemnation and due compensation, in order to 
work greater good for a greater number. 

There is no other use which can be made of either the territory 
or the waters of Lake Hopatcong that will serve so many people and 
serve them so well as when utilized as a public park and summer 
and health resort. 

Any disposition which may hereafter be made of the waters of 
Lake Hopatcong, either by the Canal Company, or by the Lehigh 
Valley Railroad Company as the lessee of the Canal, or by the 
State, when the Canal shall have become the property of the State, 
must, in justice, be subject to and must in every way respect all 



of the rights of the communities and dwellers upon the shores of 
the Lake, whether acquired by purchase or acquired by user. 

When the State shall have acquired the Canal, no new rights 
will be created or can be created by that acquisition. The rights 
of the State will be the same as are the present rights of the Canal 
Company, or the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company as the lessee of 
the Canal. 

The relation of the State or of the Federal Government to the 
individual, with respect to property rights, is exactly the same as 
the relation between individuals, or between corporations and in- 
dividuals. One of the self-evident, eternal, cornerstone principles 
of justice and equity, upon which our Federal Constitution is 
founded, is the recognition and observance of the rights of every 
citizen to the absolute ownership and enjoyment of property as the 
main essential of liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Govern- 
mental recognition of individual property rights is the main bond 
which holds the States of the Union together, and it is the main 
bond of brotherhood of the people of the States, which makes them 
patriots. 

In all ages the strength of a nation and a people has mainly 
depended upon governmental respect for individual property rights 
— the inviolate ownership of home and home lands and the sanctuary 
of the home in all that the word comprises and means. 

When Rome was strong, her strength lay in the homes of her 
people. When Rome was invincible, individual property rights of 
the common people were inviolable. 

No government is stronger than is the attachment of the people 
for the ordinations of that government which safeguard and pro- 
tect them. In a government of the people, for the people and by the 
people, the interests of every individual are the concern of all. This 
makes the concerns of the government truly the concern of the 
people. 



The Morris Canal Should Be Abandoned 



The question as to whether the Canal should be abandoned or 
rehabilitated and operated by the State, if dissociated from senti- 
mental considerations, resolves itself into a question of prospective 
profit and loss. 

Obviously, sentimental considerations could be sufficiently, anrl 
more rationally served, by malving the Canal and its right of way 
into a cross-State parliway and driveway, rather than by rehabilitat- 
ing and operating it at great loss merely to perpetuate it as a re- 
minder of antiquated industrial enterprise. 

If it is proposed that the State should take over, rehabilitate 
and operate the Canal purely as a business enterprise for profit, 
entirely aside from sentiment, then it behooves us seriously to in- 
quire as to whether or not the operation of the Canal can, under 
modern conditions, be made a profitable instead of a losing busi- 
ness enterprise. If we learn through unimpeachable evidence that 
the State could not rehabilitate the Canal and operate it at a profit, 
but, on the contrary, must necessarily do so at great loss, then we 
should be convinced by this learning that the Canal should not be 
rehabilitated and operated by the State, but, on the contrary, that 
it should be abandoned. 

Most of the uses for which the Morris Canal was built to serve 
no longer exist. 

The charter of the Morris Canal was passed in 1824. At that 
<ime there was not a single railroad in the United States. 

The first railroad built in the United States was a three-mile 
line from Quincy, Massachusetts, to tidewater, used for transport- 
ing granite from the quarries; begun in 1826 and completed in 1827. 

The Morris Canal was begun in 1825, and completed in 1831. 

The Morris Canal was not built as a competitor of railroads, 
for the railroad at the time of its construction was still in the 
experimental stage. To most serious-minded persons of that time, 
steam power was still largely a fangle of rumor and the imagination. 
The Morris Canal was built to compete with the wagon-train, and 
pack-mule team; and it proved a very successful competitor of 
them in tlie old pre-railroad days. 

The Canal was well utilized for many years in the transporta- 
tion of iron and zinc ores, with lime and charcoal for their smelt- 
ing. The forests along the route of the Canal were cut and burned 
into charcoal for the smelters, sawed into lumber, or cut into cord- 
wood, to be shipped by Canal to tidewater. But the lands were 
finally denuded of their forests; and ultimately the discovery of the 



great Lake Superior iron deposits rendered most of the iron mines 
of New Jersey unprofitable and worthless. The New Jersey lumber- 
man is now a character of a bygone generation. 

At the present time the Canal has scarcely any excuse for being 
except for the transportation of anthracite coal; and conditions 
have so changed since the coming of the railroads that transporta- 
tion of anthracite coal by mule-power over the narrow, shallow, 
winding Morris Canal, with its numerous locks and inclined planes, 
uphill and down, can no longer compete with railroad transporta- 
tion. 

It must be remembered that the Morris Canal is of very excep- 
tional construction. It is, unlike most other Canals, a real mountain- 
climber. It was the builders of the Morris Canal who introduced 
the system of inclined planes for mountain climbing, the boats 
being drawn up long steep slopes in wheeled cradles running on 
rails. 

Every canal boat that passes over the Morris Canal either way 
has to be raised and lowered through an aggregate distance of about 
two thousand feet, so that all freight transported over the Morris 
Canal has to be lifted and lowered an aggregate distance of more 
than a third of a mile, for the height above the Canal to the top of 
the planes must be included. 

Transportation over the Morris Canal is not all by water by 
any means. More than five miles is by rail over the inclined planes, 
and a very primitive, slow and ineflficient sort of railroading it is. 

As water must be used for generating the power for drawing 
the canal-boats up the long inclined planes and lowering them down 
again, together with the water consumed in operating the many 
locks, it is obvious that a far greater quantity of water is necessary 
for the operation of the Morris Canal than is necessary to operate 
canals running as is most usual, along practically level ground, 
while the loss by seepage and leakage is enormously greater from 
canals winding round sidehills than from those running over level 
plains. 

The largest boats now run upon the Canal can carry about 
sixty-eight tons of anthracite coal. The crew of the Canal boat 
usually consists of captain, helper and two mules. It requires 
five days to make the trip from Phillipsburg to Jersey City. 

The wages of the captain and helper and the fodder for the 
mules are now certainly four times as high as they were during the 
first forty years of transportation over the Morris Canal. 

High wages and high cost of living make present day hand- 
labor expensive. Consequently, as the canal-boats are both loaded 
and unloaded by hand, the handling of their cargoes is much more 
expensive than is the handling of the cargoes of freight cars, which 
is done by machinery. 

This is an age of machinery. The railroad represents the trans- 
portation and handling of coal by machinery, where the quantities 
are so great and the time and cost of handling and transportation 
so small compared with the time and expense of hand-labor involved, 

10 



in transportation by Canal, that the problem reduces itself to one 
of competition between hand-labor and machinery. 

Just as hand-labor with the sickle and the scythe can not com- 
pete with the mowing machine and the reaper; just as the hand- 
guided plow drawn by the ox-team can not compete with the steam 
gang-plow; just as the oar-driven barge and the sailing ship can 
not compete with the great modern steamship ; so snail-paced Canal 
transportation with handling of freight by mule-power and hand- 
power can not compete with the steam-draAvn freight train and with 
steam-operated machinery in the handling of cargoes. 

But there is another and insurmountable obstacle to the re- 
habilitation and operation of the Morris Canal, and that is the utter 
insufficiency of available water to feed it. There never was water 
enough for the Canal in the days of its greatest usefulness. But 
there was much more water available then than there is today. The 
forests have been cut away, and tilled fields and barren lands have 
taken the place of woodlands. The rain is no longer held, as it once 
was, in the tree-shaded humus, moss and tangle of the forest, but 
runs off quickly from the unprotected fields, or soon evaporates in 
the sun, so that brooklets that were streams of considerable size 
sixty years ago during the months of July, August and September, 
are now entirel}^ drj^ during those months. 

The question does not resolve itself by any means into simply 
one of cost of transportation, even if transportation by the Morris 
Canal would be cheaper than by railroad, which it would not. 
There is the far greater question — adequacy of transportation. 



11 



utter Insignificance of the Morris Canal as a Coal Carrier 



Even were the Canal to be rehabilitated and operated to its 
full capacity, it would still be quite an insignificant factor in supply- 
ing the demand for anthracite coal in New York and neighboring 
cities. 

The proposition to rehabilitate and operate the Morris Canal 
as a benefaction to the users of coal anywhere in the State, is a 
scheme which, for sheer economic unwisdom, is a wonder. 

The scheme would necessitate draining not only all of the 
watersheds once drawn upon to operate it, but also every gallon of 
available water that could be made to flow into the Canal would 
have to be utilized for its operation, and if it were to be enlarged 
as proposed, it would have to be shut down about half of the open 
season every year for lack of water. 

The maximum freight carried by the Morris Canal in any one 
year, namely in 1866, was 889,220 tons. Coal constituted about half 
of its tonnage. 

If the Canal were to be rehabilitated and operated, there would 
be practically no other freight except coal for it to carry, and con- 
sequently the freight would be all carried one way. 

It is probable that 500,000 tons of coal could be brought by 
the Canal from Phillipsburg to tidewater in a year, provided the 
feed-water .should hold out. Some persons who are not aware of 
the relation this quantity of coal bears to the requirements of coal 
consumption, may think that 500,000 tons is a very large quantity. 
As a matter of fact, however, it is an exceedingly small quantity. 

Few persons have any conception whatsoever of the enormous 
quantity of coal that is consumed per annum in New York and 
surrounding cities, and few persons have any adequate idea of what 
enormous quantities of coal the railroads are carrying. It will 
surprise a good many to know that the Pennsylvania Railroad, for 
example, carries in three days as much coal as the Morris Canal 
could transport in a year. 

The Pennsylvania Railroad carried 66,000,000 tons in 1910 — 
one hundred and thirty-two times as much as could be carried by 
the Morris Canal, or it carried that year as much as the Morris 
Canal would be able to carry in a hundred and thirty-two years. 
The Lackawanna Railroad carried during that year about 11,000,- 
000 tons — more than twenty times as much as could be carried 
by the Morris Canal. The different railroads entering New York 

12 



and the near cities of New Jersey carried in 1910, the following 
quantities of coal : 

Tons 

Pennsylvania Railroad 66,000,000 

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 37 OOO 000 

Philadelphia and Reading- Railroad 24'oOO,'oOO 

Erie Railroad 19,000,000 

Delaware and Hudson Railroad 17,000,000 

Lehigh Valley Railroad 14,OOo',000 

Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad 11,000,000 

Central Railroad of New Jersey 9,000 000 

New York, Ontario and Western Railroad 2[oOOJoOO 

Total 199,000,000 

Thus, the combined gross coal tonnage of the railroads with 
which the Morris Canal would have to compete is about 200,000,- 
000, as against 500,000 tons for the Morris Canal. In other words, 
the Morris Canal would be able to transport only one-four-hundredth 
part as much coal as the railroads are carrying. 

The coal which the Lackawanna Railroad alone carries in a 
year would make about 150,000 canal-boat loads, and it would 
require twenty canals the size of the Morris Canal to trans- 
port this quantity of coal ; and yet the Lackawanna Railroad carries 
only five per cent, of the total quantity of coal transported by the 
railroads delivering coal to New York and surrounding cities. It 
would require four hundred canals like the Morris Canal to trans- 
port the quantity of coal which the above railroads carry. 

The Lackawanna Railroad could transport from Scranton to 
Jersey City in 220 average trains of average cars as much coal as 
the rehabilitated Morris Canal could carry in a year. 

Professor Moulton in his book, "Waterways Versus Railways," 
has shown that a two-track railroad, if devoted entirely to the carry- 
ing of coal, as the Morris Canal would be, would be able to trans- 
port in a year a hundred and five million tons of coal — two hundred 
and ten times as much as the Morris Canal could carry. 

^ If all the railroads which bring coal to New York and neigh- 
boring cities of New Jersey were to carry nothing but coal, as the 
Morris Canal would do, they would be able to bring to these cities 
more than two thousand million tons (two billion tons) yearly. 
This is four thousand times the quantity of coal that the Morris 
Canal would be able to carry. 

Consequently, as the IMorris Canal would be in direct com- 
petition Avith all of the railroads supplying New York and neigh- 
boring cities with coal, even if coal were to be carried over it with- 
out cost and delivered at tidewater at the price at which it could 
be bought at the mines, it would tend to lower prices only one- 
fortieth of one per cent. 

Were the railroads to handle only the same proportion of coal 
to other freight that they now carry, and the Morris Canal were 

13 



to bring coal from the mines to tidewater free of cost, its influence 
to lower prices would even then be less than one-quarter of one 
per cent. 

As it would actually cost very much more to carry coal by the 
Morris Canal than by railroad, higher prices would have to be 
charged for the coal it carried than would be charged by the rail- 
roads, unless the State of New Jersey should be generous enough t(.« 
carry the coal at a loss as a benefaction to coal consumers, in 
which case the benefaction would extend equally to the inhabitants 
of New York State as to those of New Jersey, and the people of 
New Jersey would be bearing an onerous burden in order to lower 
the price of coal but a very small fraction of one per cent, mainly 
to New York consumers. 

In manufacturing cities like Newark, Jersey City, Elizabeth, 
Hoboken, and Paterson, five tons per capita of the population per 
annum, is a low estimate for the quantity of coal consumed. Newark 
has nearly 400,000 inhabitants, and consequently consumes about 
2,000,000 tons of coal per annum, so that the INIorris Canal, if re- 
habilitated and operated, would be able to supply only one-fourth of 
the coal required by Newark, it would supply only one-third of the 
coal consumed by Jersey City, and less than four-fifths of the coal 
consumed by the City of Paterson. 

Therefore, in order to supply the city of Paterson alone, through 
the Morris Canal, with about four-fifths of the coal it consumes, 
it would be necessary to draw upon an area about half the size of the 
State of Khode Island to get the water, and the largest and most 
beautiful lakes of 'New Jersey would have to be drained to the last 
drop that could be drawn every summer to get feed-water to operate 
the Canal. 

It must not be supposed for a moment that cheapened trans- 
portation of whatever sort would be able to lower the price of coal 
in any of the cities of the State of New Jersey, without simultane- 
ously lowering the price in New York and all surrounding cities 
to correspond. Even if a railroad like the Lackawanna should bring 
coal from the mines to Jersey City free of charge, working up to 
its full capacity, any influence to lower the market price of coal 
Avould be as effective in NeAv York City as in Jersey City. Prices, 
like water, find their level. 



14 



Extravagant Waste of Water 



If the Canal were to be rehabilitated and operated and every 
drop of available water utilized in its operation, the amount of 
freight which could be shipped over it would never exceed the 
maximum tonnage that used to be shipped over it in its palmy days, 
for there would not be sufficient water to feed the Canal. 

On the contrary, the tonnage could never be made to equal that 
of fifty years ago before the lands were denuded of their forests, 
with their water-retaining humus, and before the drying up in 
summer and early autumn of springs and streams. 

Not only are lakes and reservoirs necessary to store water for 
the Canal, but also large forest areas are necessary. 

It is a conservative estimate that at least one-third of the 
water which used to be utilized to feed the Canal was stored and 
conserved in the forests of that period, whence it seeped gradually 
into the lakes, springs, and streams, for their maintenance during 
July, August, and September. 

It has been proposed to enlarge the Canal, in order that boats 
of greater tonnage may pass through it. This expedient, instead 
of helping matters, would only serve to make bad matters worse, 
on account of the utter inadequacy of available water. It is a 
most significant fact that there never was sufficient water for the 
operation of the Canal in the days when its feed-water was more 
plentiful than now. Sometimes, when traffic was heavy, its feed 
reservoirs were exhausted and traffic had to be suspended. 

If the Canal were to be enlarged, still more water would be 
required for its operation, and as far less water is available for the 
purpose now than formerly, its feed reservoirs would be very much 
sooner exhausted, and traffic would have to be suspended for a 
much longer period. 

It is probable that if the Canal were to be rehabilitated and 
enlarged, it could not be successfully operated for lack of water 
from the middle of June to the middle of October, thus reducing 
by one-half the period when it would be open for navigation ; and, 
in order to supply tlie water for the four months' navigation of the 
^Morris Canal to transport not more than 500,000 tons of coal from 
Phillipsburg to tidewater — a quantity which the Lackawanna Rail- 
road or the Lehigh Valley Railroad could transport in a couple of 
weeks, and the Pennsylvania Railroad in less than three days — 
New Jersey's most beautiful lakes would be depleted during the 
months when the water is most needed in them, and instead of their 
continuance as health -giving, prosperity-making summer resorts, 

15 



they would be reduced to miasmatic lagoons and swamps for the 
spreading of mosquitoes and contagion. 

Cranberry Lake, Greenwood Lake, and beautiful, splendid Lake 
Hopatcong, that now blossom with health and teem with life and 
joy and laughter through all the good old summer time, would, with 
depopulated and desolated shores, lie reeking in the sun, stinking 
to heaven for vengeance. 

Northern New Jersey's most cherished rivulets and lakes would 
be ruined by the diversion of their water from its God-intended 
uses, in order to feed a navigable, seeping cesspool, five feet deep, 
forty feet wide, and a hundred miles long. 

This simile of a cesspool is a good and pertinent one. The 
Canal's greediness for water to supply its seepage may be brought 
home to the country house-owner who knows what a quantity of 
water can be run into a comparatively small cesspool without over- 
flowing it. 

A cesspool five feet deep and ten feet across is considered an 
adequate receptacle for taking care of the waste water of a good- 
sized country house. 

Imagine then, what a quantity of water is necessary to keep 
full to the brim a cesspool five feet deep, twenty-five feet across 
at the bottom, and forty feet across at the top; and yet the Morris 
Canal is a cesspool of such width and such depth and with a length 
of more than a hundred miles ! Think of the stupendous quantity of 
water necessary to keep that cesspool full for purposes of navigation 
in spite of its tremendous seepage. 

As I have pointed out elsewhere, C. C. Vermeule has shown that 
the seepage and leakage of the Morris Canal amounts to a loss of 
1.74 cubic feet of water per second per mile, and as the Canal is 
more than a hundred miles long, the total loss throughout its entire 
length amounts to more than 174 cubic feet per second. 

This would require a quantity of water more than double that 
which could be supplied by Cranberry Lake, Greenwood Lake and 
Lake Hopatcong combined. It would require more than five such 
lakes as Lake Hopatcong to supply the water lost by seepage and 
leakage from the Morris Canal. 

Mr. Ford Kurtz, Civil and Hydraulic Engineer, who was 
employed by parties interested in the suggested electrification of the 
Morris Canal, and who could consequently, hardly be thought to 
over-estimate the loss from the Canal by seepage and leakage, but 
rather, if anything, to minimize that loss, has estimated it, in his 
Report, at 1.33 cubic feet per second per mile, which would be 133 
cubic feet per second for the whole length of the Canal. Still, the 
loss, according to this minimum estimate, is three-quarters as great 
as estimated by that exceedingly competent and impartial engineer, 
Mr. C. C. Vermeule. 

Mr. Kurtz very naively says : 

"My conclusions, as given in the report which follows, 
are 'that if the Morris Canal were put in a state of good 

16 



repair with full depth of water at all points and an addi- 
tional net reservoired area of 10.4 square miles similar to 
present reservoired areas be secured, it would be possible 
even in the driest series of years to be expected to maintain 
navigation for a traffic of 1,000,000 long tons per annum 
with an average haul of 62.75 miles; and that the entire 
canal could be electrified from the flow required for naviga- 
tion, without the diversion of additional water.' " 
Therefore, in order to render Mr. Kurtz' plan for the electrifi- 
cation of the Canal feasible, it would require even additional resei-- 
voirs for impounding the feed water; and all of this water, in 
addition to the water drawn from all the other feed-water sources 
of the Canal, it is proposed to employ for the transportation of a 
million tons of freight per annum, on an average haul of 62.75 
miles — a little more than half the length of the Canal. 

Now, the value of such a quantity of water may conservatively 
be estimated at at least |5,000,000; and the value of lake and 
summer and health resort properties which would have to be sacri- 
ficed would surely be worth at least another $5,000,000. 

The interest on 110,000,000 at five per cent, is |500,000 a year, 
and this, at the start, would impose an expense of at least fifty 
cents a ton for every ton of freight that passed over the Canal, 
even if a million tons per annum should be carried, which would 
be an utter impossibility from lack of water. 

If the Canal should be rehabilitated and operated, the maximum 
quantity of coal which could be transported over it by the entire 
quantity of water available from present feed water sources, could 
not exceed 500,000 tons per aunujn, for it would be freight all 
going one way and the empty canal boats would have to return 
through the Canal to reload, so that the cost for water alone would 
amount to |1.00 per ton. 

Mr. Kurtz very prudently makes the a priori announcement in 
his Keport that the questions of the cost of the proposed electrifi- 
cation and the probable revenues to be derived from the improved 
Canal are not included within the scope of his Report. 

The present rates for the transportation of coal by the Lacka- 
wanna Railroad from Scranton to Hoboken are as follows : 

Egg, Stove and Chestnut Coal 1.58 per gross ton. 

Pea Coal 1.43 " " " 

Buckwheat Coal 1.28 " " " 

Rice and Barley Coal „ 1.13 " " " 

The largest boat which can be run over the Canal can carry 
only sixty-eight tons, and with all conditions favorable it takes 
five days to make the run from Phillipsburg to Hoboken, Jersey 
City, or Newark. 

It must be borne in mind, however, that the Canal-boats must 
be returned again to Phillipsburg for re-loading, and as there is no 
freight to be carried on the return tr'ip, they have to be taken back 

17 



empty, requiring another five days, making ten days in all for the 
round trip. 

The wages of Canal-boat captain and helper, with feed for the 
mules, for the ten-day trip to tidewater and return, added to the 
cost of loading and unloading the Canal-boats by hand, added to 
the cost of a sufficient toll to the State to maintain the Canal in 
a practical operative condition, and to pay the worth of the water 
consumed for purposes of navigation, and also to pay the interest 
on the investment, plus the wages of lock men and other attendants 
and operatives stationed along the Canal, and plus the wear and 
tear and depreciation of Canal-boats — all of which items must be 
taken into account in getting at the cost of Canal transportation — 
certainly make the cost of transportation by Canal far exceed the 
cost by rail, even though the Canal were rehabilitated and placed 
in the best possible condition. 

The Lackawanna dumps its coal directly from the car, oft' 
trestles, or into wharf boats. The coal car is run on to a platform, 
and car and platform are hoisted and the coal is run out over the 
side of the car into a chute which conducts it into the boat. 

The average harbor-boat or wharf-boat holds from 6,000 to 8,000 
tons, while the largest Canal-boat holds only sixty-eight tons. 

This forces a new consideration upon our attention, and it is 
the wharf and river space and basin space which would be required 
for the transportation and handling of the large number of Canal- 
boats necessary to supply any large coal-dealer or large consumer. 

If their coal were to be supplied from Canal-boats, the boats 
would have to be towed about the river and bay by tugs at much 
expense, seriously interfering with other business upon the water. 

There are many dealers in New York who put out as much as 
a thousand tons of coal per day at retail from their yards. This 
would require fifteen canal-boat loads a day ; while an average dealer 
would require about ten canal-boat loads a day. 

The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company uses about a thousand 
tons of coal a day. 

The New York Steam Power Company uses six hundred tons of 
coal a day. 

The sugar and oil refineries use from five hundred to a thousand 
tons of coal a day. 

The Edison Company now uses soft coal, but formerly this 
Company used 2,000 tons a day of anthracite coal. 

According to Mr. Ford Kurtz' Report, 10,000 boats would pass 
through the Canal toward New York in a year, each boat capable 
of carrying sixty-five tons of coal, aggregating 650,000 tons. This 
would be 1,780 tons a day — not quite enough coal to supply two 
ordinary dealers in New York, and not quite enough to supply one 
concern like the Edison Company. 

Now, if the Canal should be rehabilitated, it would be open to 
the use of anyone desiring to ship coal to any quarter. No partiality 
would be shown for the cities on the Jersey side. Consequently, it 
does seem rather a peculiar proposition to rehabilitate and operate 

18 



the Morris Canal, making a Saharan desert and wilderness of a 
large part of northern New Jersey, with the destruction and depopu- 
lation of its most beautiful lakes and mountain summer resorts, in 
order to suppl}^ a single New York company with coal for carrying 
on its business. 

If the State of New Jersey should take over and operate the 
Morris Canal in order to transport coal in competition with the 
railroads, it is a pertinent question how the Canal is to be supplied 
with coal at Phillipsburg, its w^estern terminus, for the Morris 
Canal ends at Phillipsburg on the eastern side of the Delaware 
River. 

It is true that the Lehigh Canal runs from the coal mines to 
Easton, Pennsylvania, on the western side of the Delaware River, 
but there is at the present time no way of transferring canal-boats 
across the river from one canal to the other, for the dam which 
provided this means was carried away by flood in 1894, and has 
never been rebuilt. 

If the State of New Jersey should have the right to rebuild tin's 
dam and re-establish connections with the Lehigh Canal, it would 
still be necessary for the State to enter into a toll agreement with 
the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company to work in conjunction 
with the Morris Canal. 

In 1868, the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company leased the 
Delaware Canal, which has since that time been operated in con- 
junction with the Lehigh Canal, and it would be impolitic and 
impracticable for that Company now to allow their Canal to be 
operated in conjunction with the Morris Canal. 

Evidently the coal would have to be brought from the mines to 
Phillipsburg, over either the Lehigh Valley Railroad or the Central 
Railroad of New Jersey, and there transferred to the Morris Canal. 

Now, as these two railroads are among the most important with 
which the State would have to compete, it would be the height of 
absurdity to bring the coal by these roads a third of the distance 
to Jersey City, then to transfer it mainly by hand into canal-boats, 
abandoning steam-power and towing it by mule-power around a tor- 
tuous, meandering, shallow, narrow, mountain-climbing canal a dis- 
tance twenty-five miles greater than by rail, to Jersey City. 

It must be borne in mind also that the total length of the planes 
on the Morris Canal is more than five miles, so that five miles of 
the distance would still be by rail, and a very poor sort of railroad- 
ing it is, too, being a sort of compromise between a railroad and a 
hydraulic elevator. 

The canal-boats have to be run into a cradle and drawn with a 
wire rope and windlass up long side-hills, and by the same means 
loAvered again in the descent to Jersey City, the total distance ^^hich 
the canal-boats have to be lifted and lowered being more than two 
thousand feet — more than a third of a mile. 

It would be very much cheaper and better for the State to hire 
the railroads to bring the coal right straight through to Jersey City 
rather than to transfer it to the Morris Canal. 

19 



Summary of Reasons Why the Morris Canal Should Be 

Abandoned 



1. If the Morris Canal were to be rehabilitated and operated, 
it would require the expenditure of more than a dollar's worth of 
water for every ton of freight that could be carried through it, and 
the value of the water necessary to feed the Canal would be far 
greater for other uses than for canal purposes. 

2. There never was available water enough for the continuous 
navigation of the Canal, and now, owing to the small forested areas, 
there is not more than two-thirds as much available water as for- 
merly. 

3. If the Canal w^ere to be rehabilitated and operated, the most 
beautiful lake and mountain resorts of New Jersey would be ruined 
in order to supply the feed water. 

4. The loss of water by seepage and leakage from the Canal 
is more than double the quantity that could be supplied by Green- 
wood Lake, Cranberry Lake, Green Pond, Bear Pond, Stanhope 
Reservoir and Lake Hopatcong combined, the loss being 174 cubic 
feet per second, while the combined flow of these lakes is only 77 
cubic feet per second. 

5. The Morris Canal, unlike most other canals, is a mountain 
climber. Freight passing through the Canal in either direction 
must be raised and lowered through a distance of about two 
thousand feet — more than a third of a mile — by means of locks and 
planes. Consequentl}', travel is made correspondingly slow, tedious 
and expensive, and an enormous quantity of water in addition to 
what would be required for a more level canal is needed to operate 
the locks and to furnish the power to run the planes. 

G. If the Canal were to be rehabilitated and operated, there 
would be no available freight worth considering except coal, and 
this would be freight carried all one way, the Canal boats returning 
empty, and the maximum annual tonnage of the Canal could not be 
made to exceed 500,000 tons on account of the shallowness and nar- 
rowness of the Canal and the small size of the Canal boats and the 
time necessary for the operation of locks and planes. 

7. The distance by the roundabout way of the Morris Canal 
to Jersey City is about twenty-five per cent, greater than by rail. 

8. The Morris Canal is able to bring coal only about two-thirds 
of the way from the mines to Jersey City, and the coal must be 
brought by rail from the mines to Phillipsburg and transferred 
largely by hand-labor to the Canal, there being no all-water route 
from the mines to Jersey City by way of the Morris Canal, for the 
Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company's canal ends on one side of 

20 



the Delaware River and the Morris Canal begins on the other side, 
with no way of bringing the coal across. 

9. If the Morris Canal were to be considerably enlarged as 
well as rehabilitated, of course larger boats could be carried through 
it, but the annual tonnage would not be increased for lack of feed 
water, because the larger canal-boats would use up the water more 
quickly and correspondingly fewer boats would be able to pass 
through it. 

10. If the Morris Canal were to be rehabilitated and improved 
in any manner, freight could never be carried by it as cheaply as it 
can be carried by rail. Consequently, the canal could never com- 
pete with the railroads in the cost of carrying coal, for the reasons 
already given and for the additional reason that the amount of hand- 
labor involved in carrying coal by the Canal as against the handling 
of coal with machinery when carried by the railroads renders the 
expense of transportation by the Canal prohibitive. 

11. The quantity of coal, namely 500,000 tons, which could 
be carried per annum by the Morris Canal, is so very small com- 
pared with the quantities which the competing railroads are able to 
carry, that the Canal could never, under any circumstances, become 
more than a very insignificant factor in the supply of coal to New 
York and neighboring cities of New Jersey. 

12. The quantity of coal which could be carried by the Canal, 
as compared with what can be carried by the railroads, is so small 
that even if the State were to operate the Canal to its full capacity, 
transporting coal absolutely free to Jersey City, it would have no 
real influence at all toward lowering the prices of coal, for the 
reason that the Canal could not supply one quarter of one per cent, 
of the coal which the railroads are carrying. In short, the Canal 
would be able to supply only one quarter of the coal required by 
Newark alone, and even less than would be required by Paterson 
alone. 

13. Even were it true, which it is not, that the Morris Canal 
would be able to bring coal enough and cheaply enough to lower 
prices in Jersey City, Newark, Elizabeth, Hoboken and Paterson, 
those cities would not be able to reap any material benefit, for the 
reason that New York and other out-of-State cities would also reap 
equal benefit, for there could be no discrimination in favor of the 
cities of New Jersey. 

14. The right of way of the Morris Canal would be worth 
infinitely more as a park driveway and portions of it for a trolley 
line for the accommodation of the public at large than it would as 
a Canal, for the Canal would be able to render but little service and 
that service one which would affect but a very small fraction of 
the population. 

21 



What Should Be Done With the Right of Way of the 

Morris Canal 



If the Morris Caual is abandoned, the question becomes a very 
pertinent one as to what disposition should be made of the Canal 
properties, especially of the right of way of the Canal across the 
State. 

We all know, because the assumption is a self-evident one, that 
the best use which could be made of the Canal properties would 
be a public use which would best serve the greatest number of the 
people of the State, But how to dispose of the Canal proi^erties 
so that the best interests of the people at large will be served is 
a problem to tease the wisdom of a Solomon. 

Reason must, of necessity, proceed from the simple to the 
complex, Consequentl}'', in approaching a complex proposition or 
problem, it is always wise to proceed as far as we can by simple 
rational processes based upon our co-ordinations of acquired ex- 
perience and our sense of the eternal fitness of things. 

Such methods of reasoning lead me to believe that the interests 
of the communities through which the Canal passes should be given 
especial consideration, and that, other things being equal, the dis- 
position of the Canal within the limits of Newark, Jersey City, 
Paterson, Phillipsburg and other municipalities should be largely 
dictated by those municipalities. 

Of course, it may be argued with reason that those municipali- 
ties would be actuated by local self-interest. Still, on the other 
hand, their local self-interest would naturally lead them to a more 
thorough investigation and understanding of the questions relat- 
ing to their respective municipalities than persons outside of those 
municipalities would be likely to take the trouble of finding out. 

Similarly, the best interests of the country districts through 
which the Canal passes should be carefully weighed, and such dis- 
position should be made of the right of way of the Canal as would 
best serve those country districts; due and careful consideration, 
all the while, respecting both city and country sections, being given 
to the interests and welfare of the people of the State at large; 
and nothing should be conceded, granted or done, which would 
be inimical to the interests of the people of the State at large. 

I think I have shown that if such a disposition should be 
made of the Canal as is desired and recommended by the com- 
munities around Lake Hopatcong, that it would serve the best in- 
terests of tlie people of the State at large. 

22 



The suggestion to convert a large part of the Morris Canal into 
a public parkway or driveway, appears worthy of serious consider- 
ation. In case this plan were to be carried out, the Canal should 
be filled up most of the way, and the wider spaces could be con- 
verted into beautiful parks. Along the route there would doubtless 
be numerous public-spirited persons who would gladly donate con- 
tiguous parcels of land for park purposes, for the reason that such 
parks along such a drivcAvay would materially enhance the value 
of adjacent property. 

Certain portions of the Canal right-of-way could also doubtless 
be well utilized for a trolley line. 

It would not be wise, however, to leave the Canal open and 
maintain it full of water as a continuous park water-way. Such a 
measure would be exceedingly unwise. 

We have shown what an extravagant waste of water would 
result from the rehabilitation and operation of the Morris Canal, 
in order to keep it full for navigation and to supply the water for 
operating the locks and planes. 

It is a fact which few people appreciate, that only about five 
per cent, of the water required for the navigation of the Canal 
is expended in operating the locks and planes. Most of the water 
is required to supply the enormous loss by seepage into the ground. 

The loss by evaporation, leakage and seepage combined, is 
more than twenty times as great as that needed to operate the locks 
and planes. 

Consequently, if the open Canal were to be maintained as a 
parkway throughout its entire length, almost as much water 
would be required to keep it full as would be needed to feed 
and operate the Canal if it were to be rehabilitated. It 
would require more than double the quantity of water which 
could be supplied by Greenwood Lake, Cranberry Lake, Bear 
Pond, Stanhope Eeservoir, Green Lake and Lake Hopatcong 
combined, in order to supply the feed-water to keep full such 
a parkway canal. Consequently, practically the same water- 
shed area would be required for such a dead canal as would be re- 
quired for a live and operating Canal. An area nearly lialf the 
size of the State of Rhode Island would have to be drawn upon 
for its feed-water. Lake Hopatcong and many other of the most 
beautiful lakes of Xew Jersey would have to be drained and con- 
verted into mud flats and mosquito incubators, in order to supply 
the feed-water. 

The Canal should be filled up the greater part of its length, 
leaving an occasional pond or stretch of canal along the route 
where the character of the ground should be favorable, and where 
there would be a natural and constant supply of water flowing 
into and through the Canal to maintain circulation and prevent 
stagnation. 

23 



A Plea for the Preservation of Lake Hopatcong. Speech of 

Hudson Maxim Before the Senate Committee on 

Railroads and Canals, at Trenton, New Jersey, 

February 5, 1912 



Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee: 

Being a large property owner on Lake Hopatcong I am 
naturally deeply interested in any legislation to draw or divert 
the waters of the Lake for any new use, which is likely, injuriously, 
to affect the value of my property. 

While speaking in my own interest and in defence of my prop- 
erty, I am speaking in the interest of all other property owners, 
and in defence of all other properties about the Lake. 

I own about six hundred acres of land there, having about three 
miles of shore front upon the Lake. 

Before becoming so deeply interested in Lake Hopatcong prop- 
erty, I looked carefully into the water question, and satisfied myself 
on several points; first that the Morris Canal and Banking Company 
had the right to draw down the waters of the Lake as might be 
required for the purpose of navigating the Canal, but that the Canal 
Company did not have the right to draw or divert the water for 
any other purpose whatsoever. 

Furthermore, I learned, or thought I learned, that in the event 
of the abandonment of the Canal, which was expected soon, all 
rights to divert or draw the waters of the Lake would cease. 

The laws of the State on which I have depended to safeguard 
my property, and the information upon which I have depended have 
likewise been depended upon by all other property owners, with the 
result that Lake Hopatcong has become a well-populated summer 
resort, and about its shores there are not only numerous summer cot- 
tages, but also many large hotels and palatial residences. 

We, the property owners upon the Lake, have invested our 
money there under the best legal counsel and advice obtainable in 
this State. 

We, the property owners, have been and are informed that 
neither the State nor any corporation has the right or can, without 
condemnation and compensation, acquire the right to draw or divert 
the waters of the Lake for any purpose whatsoever except to navi- 
gate the Canal. 

In 1903, three Commissioners, Hon. George T. Werts, Hon. John 
W. Griggs and Hon. Foster M. Voorhees, all ex-Governors, and one 
of them at one time Attorney-General of the United States, were 
appointed under a concurrent resolution, to investigate and report 

24 



upon the abandonment of the Morris Canal. Ex-Governor Voor- 
hees of that Commission is now Chairman of the Water Supply 
Commission of this State, 

It was the decision of these Commissioners (see Clause 6, page 
37, of their Report) that 

". . . . the water supplied to the Morris Canal, at 
the present time, and under present legislation, is water 
for the use or navigation of the Canal, and for no other 
use or purpose. The waters of the fresh water lakes and 
streams that constitute the supply of the Morris Canal, 
are private waters, owned by private parties. The State 
has no right or title thereto and can obtain the same only 
through purchase or by condemnation proceedings and mak- 
ing compensation to the private owners. To enable the 
Morris Canal to be used as a means for gathering and sup- 
plying potable water to the municipalities or inhabitants 
of the State, would require the enactment of legislation 
for that purpose. Under existing laws, neither the canal, 
nor any of the waters thereof, can be used for such pur- 
pose." 

Also, see Clause 7, page 38, from which I quote the following: 

"To enable the State to own, or control, the water sup- 
ply of the Morris Canal, would require a large expenditure 
of money to acquire such ownership or control through 
purchase or condemnation proceedings. We have no means 
of computing the extent of such expenditure, but it would 
undoubtedly be very large." 

Before I became so largely interested in Lake Hopatcong prop- 
erty, I was shown the brief of Richard Boardman, counselor-at- 
law for Nathaniel Niles and Others, 1903, from which I quote the 
following propositions : 

"That the title to the soil covered by the waters of 
Lake Hopatcong is in private owners, and not in the Morris 
Canal and Banking Company, nor in the State of New 
Jersey. 

"A servitude in favor of the Canal Company to flow 
said lands for the purposes of its canal, but for no other 
purpose ; to take from the Lake as much water as is neces- 
sary for the navigation of its Canal, but no more; and to 
apply the waters so taken to the purposes of its Canal, but 
to no other purpose. 

"That the servitude in favor of the Canal Company 
had its origin in the grant of the Legislature, expressed in 
the charter of the company. 

"That tlie servitude of the Canal Company is defined 
and limited by the terms of its charter. 

"That the servitude upon our estate of the Canal 
Company is a purely legal right, without equities of any 

25 



kind, not a dollar having ever been paid for it to us or to 
our grantors. 

"That the right of flowage for other purposes than 
the navigation of the Canal is property vested in the 
owners of the soil under the Constitution, which cannot be 
taken from them except upon just compensation being made 
to them. 

"That the Legislature cannot authorize the Canal 
Company to take more water from Lake Hopatcong than is 
needed for the purpose of navigating its Canal, except upon 
just compensation being made to the owners of the Lake 
(and to the riparian owners along the Musconetcong 
River). 

"That the Legislature cannot authorize the Canal 
Company to apply any of the waters of Lake Hopatcong to 
any other than canal purposes, except upon just compensa- 
tion being made to the owners of Lake Hopatcong (and to 
the riparian owners along the Musconetcong River)." 
We laymen, in relying upon the laws of the State, are obliged 
to rely upon the advice of eminent lawyers and legislators for the 
true interpretation of these laws. 

We have been advised that upon the abandonment of the Morris 
Canal, not one inch of water can be drawn from the Lake there- 
after for any purpose whatsoever, and that the Lake cannot be made 
into a drinking water reservoir with the imposition of any new 
restrictions because of that use, without condemnation proceedings, 
with due compensation to all property owners. 

We can often better understand a complex problem by looking 
at it in a simpler form. Suppose, for example, that I had a farm 
with a little lake of water in it, on the shores of which my residence 
and my farm-houses were built, and suppose that someone should 
come along and bargain with me, and secure the right at a nominal 
sum, to use the lake as a skating rink in winter, but for no other 
purpose whatsoever, and suppose the skating rink business should 
not pay, then, the question is, if the lessee should sell out his skating 
rink right to an ice company, would the ice company have the right 
to use the rink house for an ice house and cut and store ice from the 
lake; and would the ice company also have the right to prevent me 
from boating upon the lake and from bathing and fishing in it; 
and the right also to make me move my residence and farm buildings 
or raze them to the ground, to prevent contamination of the lake and 
injury to the ice, and all without compensation to me? 

We recognize the fact that there have been and are certain dis- 
advantages in drawing down the water of the Lake to navigate the 
Canal, and we are prepared and willing to bear the burden of these 
disadvantages, for we have always had and still have the freedom 
of the Lake for bathing, fishing and boating, and we have been able 
to build upon the shores, using cesspools for sewage disposal. 

It is of far less concern to us, because of far less disadvantage 

26 



to us, that the waters should be drawu down, as has been done to 
operate the Canal, than that the Lake should be made a drinking 
water reservoir, with the prohibition of boating, bathing, fishing and 
building upon the shores, and prohibition of cesspool disposition of 
sewage. 

Even if the Lake should then be kept full, the advantage of con- 
tinuous high water would not equal the disadvantage of the restric- 
tions which would inevitably follow the making of the Lake into a 
drinking water reservoir. Obviously, without the right to boat 
bathe and fish, and without the right to reside upon the shores of 
the Lake, it would make but little difference to the property owners 
about the Lake whether or not the water were to be drawn down 
much or little; for without the freedom of the Lake all the shore 
properties would become practically valueless. 

We do not pretend to deny the right of the State to take the 
waters of the Lake for any purpose whatsoever, by condemnation 
proceedings, but we do maintain that they cannot be taken for any 
new use, w^hich, by consequence of the nature of that new use, would 
be disastrous to Lake properties, without due compensation to the 
owners of those properties ; and if any bill is passed the terms of 
which violate our legal rights, we believe, and are advised that we 
may safely rely upon our belief, that such a bill would be uncon- 
stitutional, and that any provision which, by its terms, should infract 
our rights, could not be enforced. 

If we are correct in our understanding of this matter — an under- 
standing acquired by us of the best dispensers of legal wisdom in 
the State, then, whatever rights we have under the laws of the State 
are actual, and not hypothetical, and are rights which cannot be 
ignored. 

As citizens of this State, our rights in the State ought to be 
respected. It is to the best interest of all other citizens of the State 
that our rights under its laws be respected, for the welfare of each 
citizen under the law's protection is the concern of all. 

It has been suggested thnt n compromise be effected, whereby 
the Lake may be drawn down from three to four feet for potable 
purposes, and that no onerous restrictions be placed upon the use 
of the Lake as a summer and pleasure resort, with boating, fishing, 
bathing and building upon its shores, and it has been urged'that the 
State will not want the water for potable purposes for at least 
twenty years hence, and that, in the meantime, we shall have a full 
La ke. 

There are several serious troubles with such an arrangement. 
In the first place, what is to happen twenty years hence to the water 
of the Lake is effective now upon property values. If anvthing is 
to happen then which, if it should happen now would be injurious, 
the injury to property values is effective now. 

Again, w^hy should we compromise? All of the rights to the 
waters of Lake Hopatcong which we granted to the Canal Com- 
pany, either do or do not revert to us upon the abandonment of the 
Canal, and these rights either are, or they are not, wholly ours abso- 

27 



lutely; and if they are, why should we compromise? And if they 
are not ours, then why should we be compromised with? Why 
should we be considered at all? 

Again, after a water main has been laid into the Lake, how 
could we prevent more water being drawn than had been agreed 
upon? 

In this connection, we must take into consideration this fact, 
that in dry seasons, when there would be the greatest need to draw 
the waters of the Lake down to the limit of the compromise, the 
Lake, without drawing, would by evaporation and seepage be low- 
ered to that limit, and there would be no water available for potable 
purposes. 

Again, if it should be agreed now that no onerous restrictions 
shall be imposed later, how shall we be able to prevent their imposi- 
tion at any later time, if we cannot prevent it now? 

Let us look at this compromise problem in the simple form of a 
simile: Suppose an acquaintance comes to me and demands that, 
whereas I have a hundred dollars in my pocket, I should compromise 
with him and give him fift.v of it, holding out the inducement to 
me that by letting him have the fifty I should prevent him taking 
the whole, as he would be willing to compromise on that sum. 

Those of you gentlemen who have visited Lake Hopatcong, 
know the significance of the truth that it is the most beautiful sum- 
mer resort section of this State, and that it is destined soon to 
become one of the most important of all-the-year-round residential 
sections. 

I have spent more than a hundred thousand dollars to develop 
and improve my property at the Lake during the past seven years, 
and am this year building a road through my property at a cost of 
more than six thousand dollars, which will connect with other roads 
that are in course of construction, so that soon there will be an auto- 
mobile driveway clear around the Lake, and this driveway is sure 
to become one of the most attractive and popular short tours in the 
country. 

Do you know, gentlemen, that Lake Hopatcong is a large body 
of water, about seven miles long, with a shore line, including the 
islands, of about forty miles in length, and that this Lake is 
almost a thousand feet above the sea, and that mosquitoes are about 
as rare there as are snakes in Ireland? 

Do you know of the very large number of passengers carried to 
and from Lake Hopatcong every year by the Lackawanna Railroad 
and the Central Railroad of New Jersey? And do you know that it 
is already one of the most popular points visited by automobilists, 
and that it is one of the main attractions that brings automobilists 
into the State? 

It has been reliably estimated that each automobile party visit- 
ing or touring the State spends on the average about fifteen dollars 
a day. 

At the present time Lake Hopatcong brings into the State many 
thousands of automobiles every year, and it is a lodestone that makes 

28 



them linger longer than they otherwise would, and leave their money 
here, and the profits to the State on the money they leave is even 
now greater than the interest would be on that sum of money at 
which the Lake Hopatcong water rights are appraised. 

At the present time, Lake Hopatcong is, furthermore, an impor- 
tant tax-paying community; the property there is an important 
asset to the State. But we are not to think merely about the pres- 
ent moment in considering a section of the country like Lake Hopat- 
cong, where building is going on so rapidly, and where property 
values are doubling every few years. 

We must consider also what that community will be and what 
its significance to the State will be ten years from now — twenty 
years from now — generations from now! 

Again, we must well weigh the significance of the proximity 
of Lake Hopatcong to New York City — the metropolis of the western 
world — and the fast growth of rapid transit facilities. All the tun- 
nels under the Hudson, later the bridges that are to be built over the 
Hudson, and all the buildings that go up in the City of New York, 
serve to enrich all of New Jersey. 

If Lake Hopatcong be dedicated as a permanent residential 
section and summer resort, millions of dollars will be diverted in 
their flow and brought into this State by the attractions of Lake 
Hopatcong, and large and expensive villas will be built in Northern 
New Jersey, which would otherA\ise be erected upon the shores of 
the Hudson or on other waters; for the city man in summer is 
bound to have his mountains, his lake or river waters, and the cool 
airs, bright suns and skies that go with them. 

Think what Niagara Palls means to the State of New York! 
The torrential flow of its mighty waters brings into New York State 
a concomitant torrential flow of mighty dollars. 

If the waters of Lake Hopatcong are to be diverted to flush city 
sewers, and that resort is to be wiped off the map, then there will 
flow away from that Lake and away from this State many times 
more money than all its waters are worth for potable purposes. 

Lastly, every citizen in the State of New Jersey is proud of 
Hopatcong. Every one who has ever visited it is enthusiastic about 
Hopatcong; and thousands of New Jersey citizens enjoy its beauties 
and are renewed in health there every year. 

AVith the example of New York State's esthetic devotion to 
Niagara in preserving that waterfall to gladden its citizens and the 
world with its beauty, when millions could be reaped by selling for 
power purposes all that the power companies are anxious to buy, 
cannot we, the people of New Jersey, well afford to preserve Lake 
Hopatcong, and shall we not preserve it, for all the people's greatest 
srood? 



29 



Speech of Hudson Maxim Before the Morris Canal Investiga- 
tion Committee at the Lake Hopatcong Hearing, 
November 16, 1912 



Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee: 

Lake Hopatcong, qneen of all the lakes of New Jersey, is on 
trial for her life, and if she is to be sentenced to destruction, it means 
an actual sentence of death also upon numerous persons in this and 
neighboring States who would otherwise be afforded opportunity of 
finding salvage here, because the numbers of those who have already 
found at this lake the parting of the ways from fatal disease to 
sound health are beyond our counting. 

Every resident of Lake Hopatcong here tonight is recalling to 
his mind at this moment many such cases, and there are some among 
those present who would now be but a memory had it not been for 
the life-saving grace of Lake Hopatcong. 

Three years ago, a certain literary gentleman, who is now our 
acting Borough Clerk, and one of us this evening, was a pale, ema- 
ciated consumptive, in the pent airs and disease-laden whirl of New 
York City, and one day he fell in the street stricken with that pre- 
monitor of death, the pulmonary hemorrhage. He was taken to a 
hospital, and the attending physician counted his remaining days 
upon one hand, but a friend brought him to Hopatcong, and in less 
than six months he was well again, and fat and sound, and not a 
germ of tuberculosis to be found by the most searching diagnosis. 
He is today a perfect picture of health and manly vigor. 

The son of the proprietor of this hotel, who is now such a rosy, 
vigorous, handsome lad that he is a feast for the eyesight and we 
turn and look at him a second and a third time for the mere glad- 
ness of it, was a puny, pale and sallow despair four years ago when 
he came to Hopatcong, 

The disposition of Lake Hopatcong, if and when the Canal is 
abandoned, involves two main considerations: First, actual, legal 
vested rights and interests of the residents and property-owners 
upon the shores of the Lake and in adjacent communities; and, 
second, the dominant rights and interests of the general public — of 
the people at large. 

Law is an attempt to govern future procedure in the light of 
past practice. At best, all jurisprudential procedure is but an 
approximation to the natural adjudication of the human conscience, 
based upon our sense of the eternal fitness of things. 

A commonwealth is a corporate body which, like any business 
corporation, fulfils its true purpose insomuch, and only insomuch 

30 



as it is a truly co-operative body, where all citizens are shareholders, 
just as truly as are the stockholders in any great business corpora- 
tion. By consequence, individual welfare is part and parcel of the 
general welfare, and individual concern is part and parcel of public 
concern just in proportion as individual personal value and the 
value of individual possessions are elements of and contributory to 
the greatest good of the whole corporate body of the people. 

Condemnation of property under the right of eminent domain, 
is a species of surgical operation where some limb of the body 
politic is sacrificed for the salvation, or best interest, of the rest of 
the body as a whole ; and, just as is true with the human body — the 
more vital a member and the more it is contributory to the life and 
welfare of the whole organism the more is it valued and safeguarded 
and reluctantly sacrificed — so with the body politic. 

Those members which contribute more to the general health, 
general prosperity and general good, 'should not be sacrificed to a 
cause or use less contributory to the general welfare, and the sacri- 
fice should not be made of one part or member in the interest merely 
of another part or member, but for the whole body. 

What is the best use to which Lake Hopatcong can be put? Is 
it worth as much for a water reservoir as it is worth for a summer 
and health resort? 

In spite of the ever-present Canal problem, many properties 
around the Lake have doubled in value several times during the 
past twenty-five years. 

If, as Mr. Morris Sherrerd has told us, the water would not be 
needed for potable purposes for the next twenty-five or thirty years, 
perhaps longer, and if, as we have every reason to believe, popula- 
tion will continue to increase and property values around the Lake 
to enhance in the same ratio for the next twenty-five years, then there 
will be a population at this resort of 100,000 persons, and there will 
be 1100,000,000 worth of property. These are conservative figures. 
And it is such a population and such a resort that has been pro- 
posed to be sacrificed in order that, twenty-five years hence, the water 
of the Lake may be drawn away to supply a population no greater 
than Lake Hopatcong's population will be at that time. 

On Page 142, Vol. 3, of the Geological Survey of the State of 
New Jersey, of 1894— "A Report on Water Supply," by C. C. Ver- 
meule — the present storage capacity of Lake Hopatcong within the 
whole flowage basin formed by the eleven foot raise of the Lake by 
the Canal Company, is estimated at 1,100,000,000 cubic feet. This 
amounts approximately to 7,000,000,000 gallons. 

This quantity of water would supply Newark's 400,000 inhabi- 
tants for only 175 days, or less than six months. This quantity of 
water would supply 175,000 inhabitants for one year. Last winter 
at Trenton it was suggested to compromise on drawing the water 
down four feet instead of eleven feet. If this were done, then the 
water available would supply only 64,000 inhabitants for one year, 

31 



or the whole city of Newark for but sixty days, and the Lake would 
be sacrificed for that. 

On Page 194 of the same volume, we learn that the loss of 
water from the Canal by seepage and leakage is about 1.74 cubic 
feet per second per mile. Now, as the Canal is more than a hun- 
dred miles long, the total loss for the entire Canal, exclusive of 
water lost by evaporation and exclusive of water used for lockage 
and for operating the planes, is about 174 cubic feet per seconcl. 

Therefore, the 1,100,000,000 cubic feet of water which Lake 
Hopatcong holds would supply this loss for only about seventy-three 
days, so that it would take five Lake Hopatcongs to supply the water 
lost by leakage and seepage from the Canal. 

Now this matter of loss by leakage and seepage is something to 
be taken into account by the advocates of the Canal Parkway proposi- 
tion. 

If it is better and more to the interest of the people of the State 
at large that Lake Hopatcong should be dedicated as a contribu- 
tory supply of potable water for certain municipalities, then it 
should be dedicated to that use, but it may as well be understood 
from the first, and the people at large should understand from the 
first the whole true significance of its dedication as a potable water 
supply. The people at large should understand from the first that 
such a dedication would mean the prohibition of all boating, bath- 
ing and fishing upon the Lake and the total exclusion of all persons 
from the Lake. 

The majority of the people of the State should understand and 
appreciate from the first that they would be surrendering this beau- 
tiful summer and health resort without quid pro quo — without 
compensation. 

The people at large should understand that they would be mak- 
ing a donation at great self-sacrifice by cutting themselves out of 
the right to participate in the enjoyment of this Lake by dedicating 
it as a potable water supply. 

This State has an estimated population at the present time of 
about 3,000,000 inhabitants. All of these three millions would be 
robbed and irreparably injured in order that about five per cent, 
of their number should draw the waters of this beautiful Lake 
away to flush their sewers, sprinkle their streets and irrigate their 
gardens, and, incidentally to get a few bucketfuls for kitchen use. 

It is perfectly right and proper that the interest of the few 
should be subverted, with due compensation, in the interest of the 
many. That is lawful and that is best, and lawful because best, 
which serves the greatest good of the greatest number. The sub- 
ordination of the interest of the few to the welfare of the many is 
called the exercise of the right of eminent domain, but not the sub- 
ordination of the rights of the many to the interests of the few. 

The 3,000,000 inhabitants of the State of New Jersey all have 
certain legal rights to visit and enjoy Lake Hopatcong with their 
friends and families. If the Lake be dedicated as a State Park, 
the people will retain their own for their enjoyment. If, on the con- 

32 



trary, it is dedicated as a potable water supply, it can, as I have 
shown, serve but 175,000 persons, or only about five per cent of the 
population of the State. 

It would be a most extraordinary, most unjust and most ridicul- 
ous procedure, and an inversion of every principle of the rio-ht of 
eminent domain, to sacrifice the rights in*Lake Hopatcono- of ninetv- 
flve per cent of the population of the State in the interest of less than 
five per cent, of the population. 

It is the opinion of eminent engineers that in the near future 
every municipality of size will have a double system of water sup- 
ply—a low pressure system for potable purposes, and a hi"-h pres- 
sure system for the extinguishment of fires and for commercial uses 
—and that with the growth of population in rural districts, the use 
of surface waters accumulated in lakes and rivers when used for 
potable purposes, will have to be purified, and with the two-fold 
plan of municipal water supply, where only the potable water will 
need purification, this will not be a hardship. 

Lake Hopatcong's value as a potable water reservoir can not 
exceed what it would cost to construct a reservoir elsewhere for the 
storage of an equal quantity of water, 

A reservoir forty-four feet deep would require to have onlv one- 
quarter the surface area of Lake Hopatcong, in order to hold as 
much as Hopatcong, namely, 1,100,000,000 cubic feet. In other 
words, it would require a reservoir less than a square mile in area. 

In order to hold a quantity of water equal to that obtainable 
by drawing the Lake down four feet, it would require a reservoir 
only one-third of a square mile in area and forty-four feet deep 
If made twenty-two feet deep, it would have to be only two-thirds 
of a square mile in area. If made as shallow as fourteen and two- 
thirds feet deep, it would require to be only one square mile in area. 

The value of a lake or waterfall, or any other piece of Nature, 
cannot always be appraised on the basis of its actual economic worth' 
for often a cluster of hill, water and sky possesses a far greater 
than economic value even though the economic value be immense. 

Perhaps Niagara Falls affords as good an exemplification of this 
truth as any piece of natural scenic beauty. The economic value of 
Niagara as a water power is so enormous as to transcend our 
comprehension. 

The customary method of appraising a water power is to cal- 
culate the sum of money which, placed at interest, would yield a 
sufficient income to buy the coal necessary to develop steam-engine 
power equal in amount to the water-power. 

Now it has been estimated (See United Editors' Encyclopedia, 
Vol. 26; also "Hydroelectric Developments and Engineering," by 
Frank Koester, Page 327), that Niagara Falls develops an energy 
equal to 16,000,000 horse-power. To develop 16,000,000 horse-power 
through the best up-to-date steam engines would require the con- 
sumption of about two pounds of bituminous coal per horse-power 
hour. Consequently, it would require 32,000,000 pounds of bitumin- 
ous coal per hour, or 16,000 tons per hour. 



33 



This is a quantity of coal so great as to represent a stream of 
compact coal 3^ feet square running through a chute at a speed of 
16 feet per second continuously forever, piling up 384,000 tons every 
day. 

At 13.00 a ton laid down at the plant, this daily quantity of 
coal would cost |1,152,000. Approximately, then, it would cost a 
million dollars a day to buy the coal necessary to develop the steam 
power equivalent to the energy developed by Niagara Falls. Deduct- 
ing Sundays and holidays, the amount would be approximately 
1300,000,000 a year — a sum which in gold would weigh 450 tons, a 
sum which to raise would require a tax of three dollars a year on 
every inhabitant of the United States. 

When coal is burned or any water tumbles down a cataract, 
the energy developed is the release of stored-up sunlight. 

To the purely economic mind, Niagara Falls is equivalent to a 
cataract of coal a foot thick and twelve feet wide, falling over the 
brink at the rate of sixteen feet a second. To the merely utilitarian 
mind, Niagara Falls represents an economic waste for mere public 
sentiment and entertainment comparable to Nero's burning of Rome ; 
in fact, a sum so vast as to provide for public amusement a con- 
flagration of the size of Nero's bonfire every six months. 

It is estimated that 13,300 buildings were destroyed in the 
great London fire, the property loss being estimated at about 
$50,000,000. Consequently, a conflagration the size of the great 
London fire could be provided once every sixty days for public 
entertainment and amusement for a sum equal to that which is run- 
ning to waste at Niagara. 

What then is the true value of Niagara, and what are we to take 
as the real coefficient of its value? It would require |6,000,000,000 
placed at interest at 5% to yield $300,000,000 a year, the sum neces- 
sary to buy the coal to develop steam power equal to the water 
power that is annually wasted there. 

This sum is equal to four-fifths of the total wealth of the 
Empire of Japan, and yet the majority of the people of the State 
of New York and of the United States, and of the Province of 
Ontario and all of Canada appraise the value of Niagara for its 
unequalled scenic beauty and sublime grandeur so highly as far to 
outweigh its economic value as a water power, and effective 
measures have been taken to restrict its use for power purposes. 

This greatest wonder of the world is a world-posssession, and 
all the people of the world are interested in its preservation for its 
aesthetic and greater than economic value. To give over Niagara 
to the vandalism of private enterprise would be a crime o gainst 
nature, a violation of the right of eminent domain of the people of 
the whole world. 

The Palisades of the Hudson — those grand old towering sen- 
tinels — tell of a long bygone pre-glacial age when the Hudson was a 
river so mighty that the Hudson of today, grand as it is, is but a 
rivulet in comparison ! There Is a lot of excellent trap rock in the 
Palisades. It is most admirably located for quarry and transporta- 

34 



tion, but the hand of the people is raised to stay the hand of the 
vandal, and the Palisades are to be preserved. 

Central Park cost New York City |5,000,000 sixty years ago, 
and what a great tribute it is to the splendid foresight of the city fore- 
fathers. How inconceivable is its value today ! How far above any 
economic worth is the value of that nearl}^ a thousand acres of free 
earth, free air and open sky to the people of the great city! 

During the glacial period an all-wise Providence, with ice and 
boulders, ground this large and beautiful Lake Hopatcong out of 
the earth and rock. It is New Jersey's greatest piece of scenic 
beauty. It is New Jersey's natural Niagara Park. Just as the State 
of New York dedicated Niagara Park to its people, so should the 
State of New Jersey dedicate Lake Hopatcong Park to its people. 



35 



The State's Great Vacation Park 



Now, as a matter of fact, not only are the property owners in 
and about Lake Hopatcong interested in the Lake, but also 
all the people of the State have interests and personal prop- 
erty rights in that large and most beautiful mountain Lake. The 
interests of all the people of the State are directly allied with the 
interests of the people of Hopatcong. The difference between their 
interests and ours at Lake Hopatcong is merely one of size or 
degree. 

The inhabitants of Mars, being farther away, do not get so much 
of the sun's warmth as we do, still their interest in the sun is as 
actual as ours. Even the inhabitants of far-off Neptune, which fron- 
tiers the solar system, to whom our sun is only a star, are still 
interested as actually as we are in the warmth that they do get from 
the great central furnace. 

Similarly, every inhabitant of the State of New Jersey has rights 
as actual in Lake Hopatcong as any property owner about its shores. 

Lake Hopatcong is the common people's summer and health 
resort of the State of New Jersey — the one where the common 
people can go for recreation, rest and recuperation at a minimum of 
expense, to camp, to bungalow, or to cottage on its shores, or to 
board at some excellent boarding-house or hotel at moderate rates; 
to spend their vacation bathing in its waters, and in fishing and boat- 
ing, and in roaming over the rock-cliffed hills and through the fra- 
grant woods. 

Had the Canal Abandonment Bill passed the Legislature last 
winter in the original form in which it was presented, Lake Hopat- 
cong would have been utterly destroyed as a summer and health 
resort of the people, and instead of being a great crystal smiling in 
the sun — New Jersey's lodestone of health and happiness — it would 
have been doomed to conversion into a municipal, potable water 
supply tank, and during most of the good old summer time, it would, 
with depopulated shores, be reduced to a series of lagoons, bogs 
and swales, exhaling deadly miasmas. 

The property owners of Lake Hopatcong made common cause 
with the interests of all the people of the State in trying to 
prevent the passage of that bill in such form as to doom Lake Hopat- 
-cong to ruination. 

36 



The water of Lake Hopatcong would be sufiScient to supply for 
municipal uses only about five per cent, of the population of the 
State, and had that bill passed, the interests of the other ninety-five 
per cent, would, without any quid pro quo whatsoever, have been 
sacrificed to the five per cent, who would have got the water. 

The blessings realizable from giving, above those realizable 
from receiving, maj^ be sufficient to have rewarded the ninety-tive 
per cent, of the inhabitants of the State, had they relinquished, with- 
out any equivalent, their rights in Lake Hopatcong, in order to make 
a present of its waters to five per cent, of their numbers. 

I plead guilty to selfishness in wanting to protect my property 
at Lake Hopatcong. I also plead guilty to selfishness in wanting to 
protect the other property owners around the Lake, and I further 
plead guilty to having a selfish interest in serving the selfish inter- 
ests of ninety-five per cent, of the population of the State. 

The best servant of the people is he whose own individual inter- 
ests are in common with those of the people whom he serves. The 
man who has no self-interest in common with the people he is serv- 
ing never has been, never will be, and never can be so faithful a 
servant as he who, in serving the people, serves himself at the same 
time. 

Not only does Lake Hopatcong directly serve the people of the 
State as a summer and health resort, but also it brings into the 
State from surrounding States a very large number of summer 
sojourners, many of whom ultimately buy country homes and settle 
down here. 

Lake Hopatcong brings into the State during the summer and 
early autumn months a continuous procession of automobiles, bring- 
ing much business to the hotels, and bringing higher prices to the 
farmer for everything he produces and sells. Each automobile party 
spends, on the average, more than fifteen dollars a day. 

Every farmer in the State must place to the credit of Lake 
Hopatcong a part of his yearly profits. Throughout all northern 
New Jersey, every farm is worth more dollars today and will in 
future be worth many more dollars still, because of that beautiful 
and prosperous summer resort — Lake Hopatcong. 

Every farmer who desires to sell the whole or part of his 
lands stands a very much better chance of doing so and of getting 
good prices, in the northern part of the State, where Lake Hopat- 
cong is, than he would if that beautiful sheet of water were to be 
made into a city water reservoir, and drawn down during the hot 
months of the year, to breed mosquitoes and di-^ease. 

Suppose it were possible for the Federal Congress to pass a 
bill which would destroy Niagara, in order to supply electrical 
power to the cities of New York State. It is self-evident that the 
people of all the other States would suffer a great loss and be done a 
great wrong in order that a few should have electrical i)o\ver for 
their cities. 



37 



PROPERTY MAP OF LAKE HOPATCONG 

Showing Its Wonderful Adaptability for a Summer and Health Re- 
sort and Its Equally Wonderful Lack of Adaptability for a 
Potable Water Supply 



The attached map of Lake Hopatcong, which I have had pre- 
pared for the Morris Canal Investigation Committee, is the most 
accurate and complete that has yet been made of the Lake and its 
shore properties. 

My surveyor, Mr. P. E. Boomer, C. E., spent more than four 
months in making special surveys, in gathering information and in 
the execution of the map. 

The numerous red squares indicate the buildings that have 
been erected upon the shores of the Lake, and these, together with 
the numerous streets and roads indicated in the various communities, 
show to what a large extent this important summer resort has 
already been built up, and what a multitude of cottages, hotels and 
business houses are clustered about its shores, all of which would 
have to be sacrificed and this beautiful summer resort converted into 
a wilderness, if the Lake were to be taken as a drinking water supply 
for cities. 

Not only must we take into account the significance of the sacri- 
fice of the present population and property about the Lake, and 
the present significance of this beautiful summer resort to all the 
people of the State, but also, just as the sacrifice of a promising 
youth robs the community of the coming man, so the sacrifice of this 
growing summer resort, in its promising youth, would rob the State 
of the stupendous benefaction which its future would mean. 

No city of the State today stands in need of the water of Lake 
Hopatcong. No one claims that the water of Lake Hopatcong would 
be needed during the next twenty years. To kill this prosperous 
summer resort, on a contingency that the water might possibly be 
needed twenty years hence, is the height of absurdity, for there are 
most ample sources of water supply from great and sparsely popu- 
lated watersheds, where the sacrifice or cost would be small, and 
where the water would receive the minimum of pollution, and this 
in addition to the practically inexhaustible supplies of pure water 
obtainable by sinking artesian wells. 

In ten years from now, the population of the State will be 
nearly four millions, and in twenty years from now, it is estimated 
that the population will be five and a half millions. 

Even now, Lake Hopatcong would, as a water supply, benefit 
only about five per cent, of the population of the State; in ten 

38 



years from now it would benefit about four per cent, of the popula- 
tion, and in twenty years from now, it would benefit only three per 
cent, of the population of the State. If drawn down four feet, ac- 
cording to the proposed compromise of last year, the water of Lake 
Hopatcong Avould even now benefit less than two per cent, of the 
population of the State. 

In twenty years from now Lake Hopatcong will itself have a 
population as great as that which its water would supply for muni- 
cipal purposes. 

The very irregular form of Lake Hopatcong, winding and mean- 
dering as it does among the hills, making numerous bays, coves, and 
inlets, gives it an exceedingly long shore-line in proportion to its 
area. 

Lake Hopatcong has a shore-line, including its islands, of about 
forty miles, while the area of its surface is less than four miles. 

A round lake having the same area as Hopatcong would have 
a shore line of only 6.93 miles — only one-sixth as much shore-line 
as Lake Hopatcong has. Lake Hopatcong, with its less than four 
square miles of surface, has as much shore-line or lake front as 
would a round lake having a hundred and twenty-eight square miles 
of surface. 

Consequently, Lake Hopatcong has as much available shore- 
front for the building of cottages as would a lake of ordinary 
round shape more than thirty times as large. 

The very irregular contour of Lake Hopatcong, and its very 
long shore-line, most admirably adapt it for a summer resort, not 
only because of its wild beauty, but also because of its very great 
capacity for accommodating a summer population. But these very 
things which admirably adapt it for a summer resort also render it 
correspondingly unsuited for a potable water reservoir, unless the 
entire population around its shores should be removed and their 
property destroyed, which certainly would have to be done if any 
of the water were to be diverted for city uses. 

Even were Lake Hopatcong to be destroyed as a summer and 
health resort, to make it a city water supply, it would still be a 
very impractical potable water reservoir, because, owing to its ex- 
ceedingly irregular form and long shore-line, it would cost many 
times as much to patrol it and protect it from the intrusion of 
the public as it would to protect an ordinary potable water reservoir 
of the same area. In short, Lake Hopatcong is wonderfully adapted 
for a summer resort and equally wonderfully ill-adapted for a potable 
water reservoir. 



39 



SOME Important FACTS About 
Lake Hopatcong 

Showing how Wonderfully it is Adapted for 

A Public Park, Summer and Health Resort 

Also, how Badly Adapted it is for 

A Source of Drinking Water for Cities 



LAKE HOPATCONG has an area of less than four square 
miles. 
Lake Hopatcong has a shore line of more than forty miles. 
A round lake of the same area would have a shore line of less than 
seven miles. 

There are a hundred and eleven lakes in the State of New Jersey, 
and Lake Hopatcong is the largest and most beautiful of them 
all, but Lake Hopatcong is situated on the top of a ridge of 
hills and has a watershed only one-twelfth as large in propor- 
tion to its size as is the average size of the watershed of the 
lakes of the State. 

Consequently, 

The water in Lake Hopatcong is changed only one-twelfth as often 
as is the water in the average lake, so that with an equal num- 
ber of inhabitants on its shores in proportion to the quantity 
of water it holds, Lake Hopatcong would become twelve times 
as polluted as would the average lake in the State. 

Lake Hopatcong can accommodate a shore population equal to what 
could be accommodated by a chain of six round lakes, each of 
them having an area equal to that of Lake Hopatcong. 

Consequently, 

Lake Hopatcong has advantages as a summer and health resort 
equal to a chain of six round lakes, each of them as large as 
Lake Hopatcong. 

Lake Hopatcong would, with an equal density of shore-front popu- 

40 



lation, be polluted seventy-two times as much as would a round 
lake of the same size having the average watershed; in other 
words, it would be polluted more in a week than would the 
round lake in a year. 

Lake Hopatcong has as much shore front as a round lake thirty 
times as large— that is to say, a lake having 128 square miles 
of surface. 

Consequently, 

Lake Hopatcong can accommodate a shore front population equal 
to a round lake thirty times as large. 

Consequently, 

Lake Hopatcong would be exposed to thirty times as much pollu- 
tion as would a round lake of the same length of shore line, 
other things being equal — but other things are not equal, on 
account of the small size of the watershed of Lake Hopatcong. 

It is an amazing fact that the water of Lake Hopatcong, would, 
therefore, be subject to three hundred and sixty times as much 
concentration of pollution from shore-front population as 
would a round lake, having the same amount of shore-front 
and having the usual-sized watershed ; in other words, Lake 
Hopatcong would be polluted as much in a day as would the 
round lake in a year. 

Furthermore, the Lake Hopatcong watershed receives, per square 
mile of surface, much less rainfall than the surrounding coun- 
try. This fact was noted by that eminent engineer, Mr. C. C. 
Vermeule, in his "Geological Survey of New Jersey," Vol. III., 
Water Supply, 1894, pages 13 and 103. 
As an actual fact, the average annual rainfall for the State of New 
Jersey, taken over a long period of years, is 46.14 inches, while 
the average annual rainfall for the Lake Hopatcong watershed 
is only 42.54 inches, so that the Lake Hopatcong watershed gets 
3.60 inches less rain in a year than does the average watershed 
in the State. 

Now, 3.60 inches over the entire watershed represents a shortage, on 
the 3.82 square miles of surface of the lake, of two feet, so that 
Lake Hopatcong receives 213,000,000 cubic feet (1,500,000,000 
gallons) less water than it would if it got the normal rainfall. 



41 




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Some Important facts About LAKE HOPATCONG 

Showing Its Wonderful Adaptability for a Summer and Health Resort aad Its EquaUy Wonderful Lack of Adaptability for j I'l'Uble Water Supply 

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'>ii^ .• uiily t Some Amaiing Facia In « NuUhcIl 

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